Market Wrap: Higher Inflation Expected to Send Bitcoin and Gold Higher Into End of Year

Bitcoin reached an all-time price high of about $68,950 on Wednesday after a report showed higher-than-expected inflation in October. The cryptocurrency eventually returned some gains as short-term overbought signals appeared on the charts.

Gold also rose to its highest level since June following the U.S. inflation report. The precious metal reversed its negative correlation with bitcoin on Wednesday as seen in the chart above.

“The knee-jerk reaction to the hottest inflation reading in 30 years triggered risk aversion which was accompanied with a strong dollar and weakness across the top cryptos,” Edward Moya, an analyst at Oanda, a foreign exchange brokerage firm.

“Wall Street is quickly realizing that inflation is not fading just yet and demand for inflation hedges will remain strong into the end of the year,” Moya wrote.

Latest Prices

• Bitcoin (BTC): $65,916.17, -2.37%
• Ether (ETH): $4,641.23, -3.04%
• S&P 500: $4,464.71, -0.82%
• Gold: $1,852.17, +1.23%
• 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.563%.

Get ready for stagflation

“Our view that there has been a profound paradigm shift in the global economy: The risk of inflation being durably above official targets is now a serious risk, and it is featuring prominently in corporate and household decisions once again,” Deutsche Bank strategists wrote in a research note on Wednesday.

In response to the inflation report, Deutsche Bank lowered its near-term economic growth forecasts and said it now expects a period of “stagflation” – a period of stagnant demand and high inflation.

“For markets, financial conditions remain incredibly accommodative by historic standards, and even as break-evens [market-based inflation expectations] have risen over the last couple of months,” Deutsche Bank wrote.

Bitcoin exchange outflows continue

The supply of bitcoin on exchanges continues to decline, which could indicate a preference among investors to hold BTC in wallets instead of making their coins available to trade on exchanges.

“As a result of continued exchange outflows, the aggregate BTC exchange balance has fallen to multiyear lows of 12.9% of circulating supply,” Glassnode, a crypto data firm, wrote in a blog post.

Exchange outflows continued during BTC’s price consolidation last week, which provided a bullish signal ahead of the fresh all-time high on Wednesday.

Altcoin roundup

• Tether to launch on Avalanche: Tether’s USDT will become available on the Avalanche blockchain to support the long-term growth and sustainability of the network, CoinDesk’s Helene Braun reported. This is the ninth blockchain that Tether has launched on, after previous integrations on Polkadot and Solana, among others. The world’s largest stablecoin by market capitalization will also begin trading on cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex to provide investors with fast and low-cost access to the token.
• Ethereum Name Service tokens soar after $500 million airdrop: Ethereum Name Service, a protocol that issues non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that can represent Ethereum addresses as well as web domains, launched an airdrop portal, which led to a surge in price for its decentralized autonomous organization, CoinDesk’s Andrew Thurman reported. Airdrops are a token distribution method that awards a portion of circulating tokens to Ethereum addresses that fulfill certain parameters, for example the purchase of an NFT.
• Beeple’s ‘Human One’ sculpture and NFT sells for nearly $29 million: HUMAN ONE, a 3-D video sculpture by artist Beeple has sold for $28.9 million to a Switzerland-based online bidder, Barron’s reported. The sale also included an NFT. The video sculpture is a hybrid of physical and digital technology and shows a striding person in silver garb wearing what seems to be a space helmet. The final sale price was double the amount estimated for the art piece.

Relevant News

• Coinbase Shares Tumble as Q3 Revenues Fall Well Short of Estimates
• Electronics Retailer MediaMarkt Hit by Ransomware Demand for $50M Bitcoin Payment
• Voyager Digital Hits 1M Funded Accounts, Cites Loyalty Program
• Day 7 of Kleiman v. Wright: Wright Tells Jury Kleiman Only Mined ‘Testnet’ Bitcoins

Other markets

Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day lower.

Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):

• Algorand (ALGO): +4,28%
• Chainlink (LINK): +3.14%
• Litecoin (LTC): +2.06%
• USD Coin (USDC): +0.01%

Notable losers:

• The Graph (GRT): -11.71%
• Cardano (ADA): -8.21%
• Polkadot (DOT): -7.66%